T-Mobile’s phone-leasing ‘Jump’ program could be amazing

Would you prefer to lease your phone from your carrier if it meant you always had the newest phone and didn’t have to pay the full price for the hardware? It looks like T-Mobile is planning to offer exactly that with a new program they are calling Jump.

At the rate that smartphones are released today, it’s easy for a tech enthusiast to look at their nine-month-old phone as though it is an antique. This gets pretty hard to deal with when you’re stuck in a two-year contract. T-Mobile’s UNcarrier plans sought to free users from this by allowing them to buy phones outright or pay over time without being bound to a contract. This works out well when you look at it on paper — you end up saving a lot of money this way. Still, as a mobile provider, it’s in T-Mobile’s best interest to give customers a reason to keep paying that monthly bill. According to a leaked pamphlet found hours before T-Mobile’s press event, it looks like Jump is a great attempt at keeping users paying that higher monthly rate.

The Verge is reporting that Jump is like a lease program. You enter into an agreement with T-Mobile where you pay a monthly fee similar to what a new subscriber would pay for the phone, and when you are ready to trade up you hand in the current phone for the new one. This means you don’t ever really own the phone you are using, but it also means you pay that monthly rate and guarantee that you have the latest phone whenever you want to trade for it.

It’s expected that T-Mobile will release more details regarding this program later today, but as a starting point Jump looks interesting. This is a great middle ground between people who want to own their phone and do whatever they want with it, and people who just want the latest phone. Keep an eye on Geek.com at around 2:30 ET for more information on this program and everything else T-Mobile will be sharing today.